CHARLOTTE, N.C. — After Tyson Chandler went down and the Knicks were beaten by the Bobcats on Tuesday night, Carmelo Anthony initiated a players-only team meeting in the locker room.
Anthony said he and others spoke and one of his messages was the Knicks must “want it more’’ and stop playing as if they don’t believe in themselves. The reeling Knicks are off to a 1-3 start, and suffered a devastating loss when Chandler was sidelined for 4-6 weeks with a broken leg. Their mental state seems very fragile, too.
“We shut the door after the game, talked it out a little bit,’’ a downbeat Anthony said Friday at the morning shootaround at Time Warner Cable Arena ahead of a road rematch with the Bobcats. “Try to figure out what was happening and going on. We just weren’t competing the way we know how to compete. We weren’t playing the way we know how to play. Hopefully the conversation we had after the game made everyone else realize, though it is early, there are things we need to fix and fix now.’’
“We got to want it,’’ added Anthony, who is shooting just 37.1 percent. “We got to want to do it. We got to believe in ourselves right now. We’re playing like we don’t believe in ourselves.’’
The team’s turnover issues also came up during the meeting, Anthony said. Last season, the Knicks led the league in fewest turnovers and now they are committing a bundle – 16.5 per game.
“[It was] just players,’’ Anthony said of the pow-wow. “It doesn’t really have anything to do with the coaches. It’s us out there playing. I felt we needed to sit down and talk and get that out of the way.’’
After the Charlotte loss, Anthony seemed as down as at any time during his Knicks stint, saying, “It’s easy to go to a dark place right now.”
Anthony, who didn’t speak to the media Thursday, called the Chandler diagnosis “a sad situation.”
“We got to get over it,” Anthony said. “It’s a sad situation, unfortunate situation. But we got to keep on going.’’
Raymond Felton had taken to the radio to apologize for the team’s play.
“The fans are not here in the locker room with us,” Felton said Thursday night on ESPN Radio. “They are not inside what’s going on with this team. All I can say to the fans is we do apologize. I am speaking on behalf of myself and my teammates. We do apologize for the way we have been playing. We aren’t playing Knicks basketball.”
Felton also said actions would speak louder than any words.
“It’s not about no leadership,” Felton said. “Guys got to look at each other in the eyes, look at themselves in the eyes and got to play harder. I got to play harder. It starts with me. I’m going to make sure of it [Friday].”